Apartment List offers new scholarship

Apartment List is an online rental marketplace based in San Francisco that is offering a $2,500 scholarship to outstanding students who exemplify one or more of Apartment List’s core values. The core values are bold while pragmatic, endlessly helpful, making an impact, driven by data, succeeding together and forever learning.

“Apartment List’s primary goal is to create the world’s most extraordinary rental experience,” said data scientist Max Rosset, who works to make the information on the company accessible and understandable.

A committee selected from Apartment List’s senior leadership team evaluates entries for the contest. Scholarship entries are evaluated on their quality and applicability, and the Apartment List’s committee selects one winner each winter and fall. Submissions for spring are due June 1, 2015. All applicants who are 18 or older and will be attending an accredited college or university by fall 2015 are eligible to win.

Applicants are required to submit an essay about accomplishments that exhibit the company’s core values and how one would characterize a home.
Andrew Woo, a senior operations associate at Apartment List, said that the company hopes to offer this scholarship yearly. Woo manages user acquisition channels and tracks company operational metrics.

“Most Apartment List employees are college graduates who know college can be expensive,” said Woo. “We inspire and support each other in all our endeavors. In this way, the company is able to succeed together. The scholarship is our way of giving back to the community.”

Rosset said that at Apartment List they challenge their own beliefs and learn from experience through being driven by data. “Anyone at the company can present a theory and make an impact if they have evidence to back it up,” said Rosset.

“We help the 105 million Americans nationwide who rent their homes,” said Tam. Since most of the employees of Apartment List are themselves landlords and renters, he said the company’s mission is to increase trust and transparency between renters and landlords.

Tam said the evolution and growth of technology feels like it is increasing exponentially. One who is forever learning has to “stay hungry in the pursuit of knowledge and push the boundaries of what technology allows us to do today so that we can succeed tomorrow.”

Students can access scholarship assistance from members of the BC Scholarship Foundation. The BC Scholarship Foundation not only offers help with applications, but they also give students access to a variety of scholarships offered by the BC Foundation and other groups from around Seattle.

Apartment List’s employees, being mostly college graduates, hope the scholarship will aid others on the path to graduation. “None of us could have done it without some help along the way,” said Tam, “This is our way of giving back to the future leaders of America.”